To most, the honeybee can be an annoying insect that has a powerful sting. Yet, the honeybee is so much more than just another insect. The honeybee is arguably the most vital component in the development of our food crops. With roughly 90 percent of our food crops dependent on the pollination of our honeybees, our food system, agricultural development, and diet rest on the work and well being of these buzzing insects. Unfortunately, since 2006 there has been a major decline in the population of honeybees, and has gotten progressively worse because of colony collapse disorder. The first reported increase of CCD was documented in November 2006 in Florida. By February 2007, several states began reporting major losses associated with CCD, ranging from 30% to 90%. A little over a half decade later in 2012 the attention paid towards CCD has grown substantially with more research being done as CCD continues to get worse. The main culprit for CCD, as research has suggested, is the use of pesticides on our food crops. With major corporations such as Bayer making millions and millions of dollars in profit each year in the distribution of pesticides, it is no wonder that nothing is being done to stop this practice despite evidence linking the use of pesticides and the drastic deterioration of the health of honeybees. With the continuation of the use of deadly pesticides and the vital role bees play in the pollination and development of our food crops, both the environment and our economy will be effected directly and face the potential for catastrophic results.
When looking back at history we find that colony collapse disorder has always been a mystery disease. The first published record of this disorder appeared in 1869 when large numbers...
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...nt”. So it is clear that catastrophic scenarios could very well ensue if CCD is not reversed to save the honeybee. The environment suffering greatly and collapsing will have a direct impact on our daily lives and forever change the way we eat.
Ultimately, we are at a crossroads when it comes to the crisis of CCD and the health of the honeybee. It has been clearly stated just how catastrophic the loss of the honeybee will be to our food system, which in turn will have dire consequences for our economy and environment. If the main culprit is truly pesticides, then CCD can be stopped because the problem is manmade. Yet, if it turns out that CCD is something that we cannot stop because we fail to pinpoint exactly what is going on, then the future looks to be a rough one. In essence, the health of the honeybee holds the key to our economical and financial prosperity.
The teacher will introduce the book, The Honeybee Man by Lela Nargi and she will ask the class about what they think the book will be about based on the illustrations.
The Secret Life of Bees is a fictional novel by Sue Monk Kidd that is set in 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Act, in Sylvan, South Carolina. The book focuses on the fourteen-year-old Lilly who runs away from her abusive father, with her servant Rosaleen to Tiburon, S.C. In Tiburon, Lilly uses one of her deceased mother’s treasured possessions, a black Virgin Mary, to lead her and Rosaleen to Black Madonna Honey produced by the Boatwrights sisters May, June, and August. These three sisters take in both Lilly and Rosaleen; putting Lily to work in the honey house where she is finally happy for the first time since her mother was killed. Lily is running not just from her abusive father but from the memories she has from when she was four-years-old, specifically the time when she accidentally killed her mother. This book gives a poignant analysis of this fourteen-year-old girl as she demonstrates the concepts of attachment styles, dating, parenting style, self-esteem, and the cohort effects of the generation she lived in.
There are two special populations portrayed in The Secret Life of Bees: African Americans and women. August, June, and May Boatwright along with Rosaleen are all African-American women. Other main characters such as Lily Owens and Zach Taylor fit into one special population but not both.
A beehive without a queen is a community headed for extinction. Bees cannot function without a queen. They become disoriented and depressed, and they stop making honey. This can lead to the destruction of the hive and death of the bees unless a new queen is brought in to guide them. Then, the bees will cooperate and once again be a prosperous community. Lily Melissa Owens, the protagonist of Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, faces a similar predicament. While she does not live in a physical hive, the world acts as a hive. She must learn to work with its inhabitants, sharing a common direction, in order to reach her full potential. The motif of the beehive is symbolic of how crucial it is to be a part of a community in order to achieve
Plague is an infectious disease that can lead to fatality. There was once a plague called pesticides. This plague would kill off dwarves rapidly and painfully thus causing extinction. However, the dwarves were responsible for a third of the food we consume daily. This plague surfaced in the areas where dwarves live and infected many of them. Weeks later, the dwarves begin to die, leading them towards extinction. Because of the extinction, a third of our food is diminished. Nonetheless, individuals would only care about the remaining two thirds of the food leaving people . As a result, many scientists are realizing that pesticides are the reason for the extinction of the dwarves and steadily declining food supplies.
middle of paper ... ... The governments of the affected countries must set aside funds that will help in carrying out research to establish the causes of CCD. Countries not affected by this phenomenon must also take all the necessary precautions to prevent their stock of bees from declining in numbers. If necessary steps are not taken as early as now, then many nations risk losing millions of plants due to lack of pollination and eventually we could be a famine-stricken world.
On the contrary, President Obama “unveiled a plan aimed at stopping the rapid decline in bee and butterfly populations” (“On May 19”). His plans are to reduce the death rate of bees which in turn will help out the agricultural production. He also plans to clear land in order to give the bees a bigger environment in which to repopulation and will ensure that no bees are harmed in the process (“On May 19”). The president sees the devastation that the decline could cause and is trying to combat the issue. The European Union has banned three pesticides in order to combat the decline but “have fallen short of providing adequate safeguards for the re-propagation of bee colonies”(“Bee research”). Governments are taking notice of the problem ahead yet still we are until to achieve the full support of all
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.” This statement questionably from the brilliant scientist Albert Einstein may evidently be right. In my class we were asked to pick an issue to research about, so I chose colony collapse disorder because I believe this an overlooked epidemic. UDSA reported “Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is a serious problem threatening the health of honey bees and the economic stability of commercial beekeeping and pollination operations in the United States. Despite a number of claims in the general and scientific media, a cause or causes of CCD have not been identified by researchers.”
In Europe and even in China honeybee populations are decreasing. This has an impact on everyone in the market. It effects how they food gets to the dinner table and how much it cost to put it there. Fresh produces will eventually end up being fresh produce from across the ocean or fresh produce made in a lab. It wasn’t until October 2006 when Hackenburg came public about his bees vanishing that anybody noticed that the bees were dispersing, but still scientist can’t prove the exact cause to CCD. In America nothing has really been done yet to help the honeybees. Other countries, like Europe did at least tried to maintain the current population of honeybees by amending a law that prohibited certain types of pesticides that many be harmful to honeybees. The most important thing that could be done to protect the honeybees is stop using pesticides that are harmful to important creatures like honeybees. Just like Europe did, put a ban on harmful chemicals to honeybees, until the honeybees numbers start to increase. Another logical way to help the honeybee population is to give a tax credit to people who decide to become bee keepers since bees are very important to the US economic
“No bees, no honey; no work, no money.” Bees are becoming an endangered species due to colony collapse disorder, a colony no longer existing due to a combination of deadly factors. Bees are very important in our lives, from making food cheaper to making honey-added in many medicines, foods, and other products. There are a few steps we can take in order to save our honeybees. Colony Collapse Disorder is a dead colony with no adult bees and a live queen with immature bees still present (United States Department of Agriculture, 2015).
The worldwide eradication of honey bees may not be too far away. The reasons the honey bees are dying are linked to a number of things. The most common causes are linked to industrial agriculture, parasites/pathogens, and climate change, according to the article entitled “The Bees in Decline” on GreenPeace’s website, SOS-bees.org. However, bee-killing pesticides pose the highest risk to the pollinators (the Bees). Honey bees are not the only form of pollinators.
Lily Owens, a girl struggling to find the truth and most of all, love. On her way she is face with many trials, which she’ll have to overcome. Not only that but she’ll have to face the reality of life. This is the story of, “The Secret Life of Bees,” it’ll illustrate the different aspects of “finding yourself,” the human identity and reveals how people struggles with the mistakes they make and the pain that’ll come afterward. Sue Monk Kidd, the author illustrates the major theme of accepting the truth and forgiving others in order to grow up and the power of the female community, through Lily Owens experiences.
The Secret Life of Bees begins with fourteen-year-old Lily Owens thinking back on the eventful summer she had. Lily lives on a peach farm in Sylvan, South Carolina with her abusive father T. Ray Owens. Lily has memories of the death of her mother Deborah Fontanel Owens, who died ten years ago. She remembers her mother packing and arguing with her father. Then her memory is blurred, she remembers picking up a gun, and then an explosion.
High declines in adult bee numbers in some colonies have been reported and this decline is known as colony collapse disorder6. These declines are higher than normal and can go unnoticed by bee keepers because the bees do not generally die in the nest, so the decrease is not immediately obvious. The problem addressed in this paper will be the decline of bees and the effects this decline has on the environment. The solutions proposed for this problem are increasing research, managing farming and spreading awareness. It is important to conserve the bee populations before the problem of decreasing pollinator numbers becomes too great to fix.
Over the past decade bee populations have been dropping drastically. A 40% loss of honeybees happened in the U.S. and U.K. lose 45% of its commercial honeybee since 2010. This is a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) in which worker bees from a beehive abruptly disappear in a short time. These data are definitely not meaningless since bees are a crucial part of the reproductive cycle of many foods. The impact bees have on the agriculture and the environment is far more crucial than we may think. Crops rely on bees to assist their reproduction and bring them life. Bees are renowned in facilitating pollination for most plant life, including over 100 different vegetable and fruit crops. Without bees, there would be a huge decrease in pollination, which later result in reduce in plant growth and food supplies. On the other hand, without the pollination progressed with the assistance from bees, the types of flowers According to Dr. Albert Einstein, “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination…no more men”. That’s why bees’ extinction affects people more than we ever think, and could even forebode the doom day of human race.